A new review paper has been published in the journal Information on "Top-Down Causation and the Rise of Information in the Emergence of Life" which discusses how the origin of life can be identified as the emergence of natural computational systems and how life's mysterious origins could be quantifiable in terms of information flow. You can read the full paper here.

Astrobiology: An Evolutionary Approach is an interdisciplinary textbook that presents astrobiology as a dynamic, developing science of the utmost importance for the future of humanity. Featuring contributions from leaders in physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, molecular biology, ecology, planetary science, geography, and geology, the book discusses the evolution of abiotic matter to biotic matter and emphasizes new discoveries in prebiotic chemistry, such as solid-state (solventless), in/on-water, and multicomponent reactions. It describes the most challenging problems involved in the field of astrobiology and invites the reader to become actively involved in their solution. Look for the chapter titled "Transition from Abiotic to Biotic: Is There an Algorithm for It?" contributed by Prof. Walker!

The dog that didnʼt bark in Arthur Conan Doyleʼs story Silver Blaze is infamous for giving Sherlock Holmes meaningful information about the dogʼs non-canine environment. In a new paper out titled "Quantum Non-Barking Dogs" we probe whether an atom that has not decayed or a particle that has not tunneled can provide measurable information about physical changes in its environment. You can read the full paper by Sara Walker, Paul Davies, Prasant Samantray and Yakir Aharonov here.

The Emergence@ASU group has a new paper accepted to the ALIFE XIV meeting on modeling information control in biological systems. The paper was spear-headed by postdoc Ted Pavlic and graduate student Alyssa Adams and introduces a new framework for exploring self-reference in cellular automata. A preprint of the paper, titled "Self-referencing cellular automata: A model of the evolution of information control in biological systems" is available on the arxiv here.